Talk:contender

Borrowed or inherited (Sp. and Pt.)

@Nicodene It looks like the Corominas dictionary considers contender inherited, as marked with the all caps CONTENDERE in Latin. But I notice Treccani seems to consider Italian contendere a borrowing, as per the "dal Lat. contendere". Which do you think is true, since it's uncommon for a term like this to be inherited in one Romance language while borrowed in another? On phonetic grounds, there doesn't seem to be a reason to dismiss the terms as Latinisms. But I suppose "contend" is a bit more of an abstract, less concrete term which may be not as commonly used in day to day speech (of the "masses"), so maybe that has something to do with it? The Spanish was also apparently first attested in the mid 13th century (and that is when the Italian was also attested). On the other hand, I noticed sapere.it's dictionary, like Treccani's, also generally seems to use the same "dal" designation to distinguish borrowings or Latinisms from inherited terms (compare the entries for mezzo and medio for example). But there, contendere looks to be listed as inherited. I'm thinking to now leave both the Italian and Iberian terms as inherited, unless you have anything to add. Thanks. Word dewd544 (talk) 18:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Word dewd544 An additional factor to consider is that the Spanish word shows diphthongization (yo contiendo). It also appears to be attested, at least in the agent form contendor = contendedor, since 1155, which supports its being native.

That alone would not necessarily be decisive, as the word could still be an early latinism built according to related but inherited words, e.g. tender 'stretch' or entender 'understand'. What I believe pushes the scales is the existence of a noun contienda 'dispute', which matches the verb's sense and cannot be a borrowing, since no such form existed in Latin. It would be unusual, though not inconceivable, for a latinism to produce a 'vulgar' noun of that type.

Looking elsewhere in Romance, we find that, per the FEW, there existed an Old French contendre 'to dispute', as well as an Old Occitan contendre~contener (verb) and conten~contenda (noun), among other related forms. Von Wartburg regards these as inherited, and I'm inclined to agree.

For the Italian verb, as you mentioned, there are no tell-tale phonological criteria. It does however have an accompanying 'vulgar' noun contesa, which is suggestive. I was also able to find a variant contennere in the 14th century writings of one Buccio di Ranollo (a native of Abruzzo), showing the characteristic Central Italian sound change /nd/ > /nn/. The same form occurs in 1719 in an Italian–Romanian glossary full of other Central Italian features, for which see here, page 181, part 2) near the bottom.

The simplest explanation is that the word was inherited by all of these languages. Nicodene (talk) 19:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I was looking for a form contennere actually, since I thought that would be (one of) the expected forms phonologically. And yes, it is possible to see diphthongization in semi-learned terms, either as intentional adaptations to similar established inflection patterns or something that evolved in the word with usage over time, depending on how early it was taken. And thanks for that glossary; looks interesting. Word dewd544 (talk) 21:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)